Eat Drink Man Woman 1994
Eat Drink Man Woman tells a story of family of three daughters and a father on how their proceed to stages of life. The father took the responsibilities to take care of his three daughters from small until grown up take care of their lives ranging from school, food and even laundry of his daughters underwear. As the story proceed, each of his daughter started to proceed to their next stage of life, becoming independent, getting married which means leaving the home and the father. The story continues to proceed until the end where a dramatic exposure from the father which shocked everyone in the family and everyone had found their ideal place to continue in their life.
There are few characters I mainly focused in the movie which is the father, Chu and the second daughter of the family, Jia Chien.
Chu is the father of the three daughters who had lost his beloved life 16 years ago and took the responsibility of taking care of his daughters since young until they are grown up alone. In the movie, we can see that Chu is an old man that had begun to lost the direction and his meaning in life.His daughters are beginning to leave home to pursuit their own dreams and ideal marriage while Chu is growing old nearing to death and lost his sense of taste which influence his career as a chef. In my perspective, Chu is in the Erikson psychosocial stages of development of Integrity vs. Despair. The three daughters will eventually leaves him as they proceed to their next stages of life, the lost of his sensation in taste which caused a crisis in his career and the sudden death of his best friend, Old Wen. These few factors had caused Chu to reflect his own life on his accomplishment and what will he be leaving when he faced death. As the story proceeds on with the incidents, Chu decided to quite his job as a chef and started to make notes on the Chinese cuisine recipes intending to able to pass it on to the next generation. His daughter growing to be mature and moving on to the next stage of life, marriage allows him to start to make consideration for himself which he did not since the day he took the parental responsibilities fully by himself. In the end, Chu was able to find his meaning in life, finding his new true love, Jin Rong and his soon-newborn child. In the end, Chu gained back his sense in taste which i perceived it as a symbol that Chu finally gained back his meaning in life and able to live with integrity.
The another character I focused is Jia Chien, the second daughter of the family. Jia Chien was the first of the three daughters to announced that she is going to leave the home and live outside to gain her independence and freedom of life. She had some resentment on her father, Chu for not allowing her to become chef and instead insist her to go for college and work in business field. Although she was successful in her career following the path that her father insisted, she still have resentment towards him for the control and force that influence her life pathway. As the story proceeds in the movie, Jia Chien eventually saw her father doing medical check-up in the hospital which leads her to think that her father might not be in good health and reminded her the mortality of her father. She began to have doubts to whether leave her home which she always wanted to do so. She was even given a good promotion in her job position by the company which was a good chance and reason to leave home. Eventually, she decided to reject the promotion offered and stay home to take care of her father which showed her love towards her father and she had forgiven her father for the acts in the past. However, surprisingly a shocking news was announced by her father to get married with Jin Rong, a classmate of her sister and Chu was actually in a very good health condition. The expressions showed by Jia Chien when her father announced it was first shock and then tears when her father is leaving the home. Ang Lee did not further explain or describe why were there tears in Jia Chien eyes when she looking at her father leaving the house with his new true love. Several meanings can be derived from Jia Chien tears scene in the movies. In my view, the tears of Jia Chien in the movie signifies two meaning of sadness from the feeling of abandonment and happiness. Jia Chien was willing to give up the good opportunity to leave home for independence and the promotion from her job to take the responsibility to take care of her father, due to her sisters were all unavailable and assumption on her father decline on health. The sudden news that her father, Chu was actually fine and found his new true love shocked her in an extend that her untold efforts and decisions were all in vain, this time her father is the one who will be leaving their home to move on to next stage of life. The happiness part would be where her father is actually in good health and found his true love and meaning in life to continue on and additionally, she is now gained her desired freedom to do whatever things she wanted to live independently.
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